67th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

Remarks by Aleksander N. Alekseyev Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Feder

Your Excellencies,
Mr. Director,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On January 27, 1945, exactly 67 years ago, the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, one of Nazi Germany’s largest “death factories.” It is deeply symbolic that each year on this date people of various nationalities, with various religious and political views, gather here united by a common purpose—to honor those who perished and to do everything in our power to prevent that nightmare from being repeated. We bow our heads before the millions of people—Russians, Jews, Poles, Roma, and those of many other nations—who never returned from captivity. The memory of each of them is exceptionally valuable for us.

Here, on this ground soaked with blood and mingled with ashes, we feel in a special way how fragile our shared world is, and how very connected are our fates. The past wars are over and cannot return. Each of them determined the lives not only of our forebears, but of us ourselves, giving us a means of reflecting on true values and on the necessity of their unflinching defense. Xenophobia, nationalism, and intolerance remain threats today. The temptation still exists to use brutal military power for the purpose of quickly achieving a unilateral advantage, of attaining a solution acceptable to oneself of problems that demand painstaking work, wisdom, and patience. There is still a place for the aspiration of imposing on other nations one’s own lifestyle and manner of perceiving reality. This is an extremely dangerous error that brings with itself grave consequences!

In these conditions, the increasingly active attempts to rewrite the recent history of Europe, attempts to change aggressors into victims and vice-versa, victors into the vanquished, are all the more troubling. There are people who sincerely regret that their countries did not come out against the Soviet Union, did not stand alongside Nazi Germany; they attempt, thinking back, to calculate what benefits they could have derived from this.

In some countries it has become fashionable to show off a disdainful attitude to the verdicts of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Functionaries of the SS and other criminal organizations are demonstratively held up as heroes, and monuments erected to those who voluntarily enlisted in the Nazi army and police. At the same time, everything is done to blacken the heroes of resistance and portray them as “terrorists.” Money can be found for this. Financial difficulties set in far more frequently when it comes to renovating monuments to the true heroes, to cemeteries and memorial sites connected with the struggle against fascism.

If these processes are not halted now, Europe will again have to live through horrors similar to World War II. That is why I take particular pleasure in greeting the war veterans, former concentration camp prisoners, and members of the underground who are in this room. Your words are absolutely essential not only for our generation, but above all for the young people who must know the truth, appreciate what you did, and refuse to permit the repetition of material we have already covered.

Thank you for your attention!